Thinking About Database Opportunities? Think MongoDB!

I just spoke by phone today with Ben Wolfson, MongoDB's media relations manager. It had been a while since I checked into the company and its training and certification offerings. Among many other things, I was stunned to learn that more than 1.2 million individuals have signed up for one or more of MongoDB University's free training courses.

On top of that, tens of thousands of professionals have either already earned, or are on their way to earning, the MongoDB Certified Professional certification. At present, the company offers two Associate level credentials, one for Certified Developers, the other for Certified DBAs (database administrators, for those not already plugged into DB-speak).

Free Training on a Well-Defined Curriculum and Low-Cost Exams: What's Not to Like?

If you follow the links to the DBA and Developer cert pages, you'll see that each one offers a collection of half-dozen courses (all free) to help candidates prepare for the associated cert exam. Exams run for 90 minutes, are reasonably priced at $150.00 each, and are delivered in online proctored form through MongoDB's testing partner Examity.

MongoDB has two levels of certification available to entry-level database professionals. Source: Courtesy of MongoDB University

MongoDB offers free practice exams for each credential to individuals who register through MongoDB University. Likewise their technical training materials, including ample documentation and course material, are mostly available online.

MongoDB also touts the O'Reilly book MongoDB: The Definitive Guide, 3rd edition, as a useful tool in helping cert candidates prepare for their exams (available at Amazon for $43.49).

All in all, MongoDB does a great job of drawing people into its technical orbit, and getting them trained and certified, all in the interests of helping to spread their tools and technologies around. For IT pros who already work with data, or who are thinking about doing so, MongoDB and its training an cert programs are definitely worth checking out.

For those looking for an angle to get into Big Data, MongoDB offers some excellent opportunities.